DeWine rejects language of 'personhood' amendment

Language for a petition drive to define life as beginning at conception in Ohio was rejected this afternoon by Attorney General Mike DeWine.

Darrel Rowland, The Columbus Dispatch

Language for a petition drive to define life as beginning at conception in Ohio was rejected this afternoon by Attorney General Mike DeWine.

He concluded that the group’s summary is not a “fair and truthful” statement of the issue. DeWine said the summary lists three items the measure would not affect, but those three items are not in the proposed amendment itself.

However, once that inconsistency is fixed – by either removing the three items from the summary or added them to the measure – the proposed constitutional amendment likely will be certified, DeWine said. The group easily met the threshold for gathering at least 1,000 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters, with 1,757 verified by county elections boards.

DeWine, a Republican who opposes abortion rights, noted that today’s decision has no bearing on whether he thinks the amendment is a good idea.

The so-called Personhood Amendment declares that personhood would begin the moment a human egg is fertilized, and would remain in effect throughout the development of the unborn child. That would in effect make abortion equivalent to murder, since the abortionist would then be killing a legally defined person.

A newly formed group that favors abortion rights, Healthy Families Ohio, last week asked DeWine to throw out the summary language because it did not detail the potentially far-reaching effects of the amendment.

If the language problem is fixed, amendment supporters must gather more than 385,000 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters in the next nine months to qualify the measure for the November 2012 ballot. Even if it passes, a court challenge is all but inevitable.

The three items in the summary but not the amendment say the proposal would not affect:

Genuine contraception “that acts solely by preventing the creation of a new human being.” Human eggs “prior to the beginning of life.” Reproductive technology or IVF procedures “that respect the right to life of newly created human beings.”

drowland@dispatch.com

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